Euro Drivel

In a typical piece of Euro Drivel, Timothy Garton Ash is singing the praises of the European Union. He sticks carefully to the “we all have a common history” theme, ignoring the fact that it has nothing to do with the bureaucratic morass that is the EU. My particular favourite was this:

A British student can travel to Rome with easyJet for £4.99. The bars and cafes of London are full of young Poles, working their way. These things are only possible because we have a European Union.

Firstly Easyjet is not a creation of the EU, which is a continent full of useless failing state owned airlines. Besides recent EU regulations will most likely add to the price of air tickets, as will the obsession with Kyoto. Secondly, if we want young Poles to come and work in London, I fail to see why we need the EU in order to achieve that. Notice he doesn’t mention Poles working in Berlin or Paris. Why not? Because despite their greater European Idealism, both rejected the idea of foreigners coming from the East. You see Timothy, without the EU we can choose which bits we want for ourselves, but within the EU only France is allowed such flexibility. We have to take all the considerable costs along with the less tangible benefits.